Existing common practices for handling classified data-at rest and data-in-transit within unmanned platforms are often inefficient and costly both in terms of time and resources, resulting in intelligence analysis that is based on stale, disjoint, and incomplete data. The billions of bits of information that are collected each day from various unmanned and autonomous sensors and platforms around the world can contain highly sensitive data that, if intercepted and processed by an adversary, could significantly compromise strategic capabilities. Existing cryptographic solutions within conventional network environments are often not suitable for the majority of smaller unmanned platforms due to size, weight, and power consumption requirements, as well as risks associated with reverse-engineering controlled cryptographic items.
A system and method are needed that can encrypt/decrypt both network data at rest and network data in transit, while having a small form factor to enable, for example, integration into smaller unmanned vehicles.